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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — America’s Constitution: Its Surprising Evolution From 1788 To The 21st Century

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson ,Leave a Comment on CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — America’s Constitution: Its Surprising Evolution From 1788 To The 21st Century

In an earlier article, Editor-at-Large Clay Jenkinson described America’s three constitutions: The capital-c Constitution drafted in 1787; and the small-c constitution of norms and traditions not specified in the written Constitution and the ways the American people actually constitute themselves. In this third in a series, Jenkinson suggests that even — or especially — in our norm-busting times, a president’s bully …

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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — Breaking Ice: What Happens When A Branch Of The Armed Forces Opens To Women

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson ,Leave a Comment on CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — Breaking Ice: What Happens When A Branch Of The Armed Forces Opens To Women

Long before Admiral Sandy Stosz retired from the U.S. Coast Guard in 2018, she knew that she wanted to write a book on leadership. With nearly 40 years of experience to draw on, from her early days as an ensign on polar icebreakers to her final assignment as the first female to serve as deputy commandant for Mission Support, Stosz had gained …

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JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — It’s Going To Be A Long, Hot Summer In The Badlands

Posted on by Jim Fuglie

(Reprinted from Dakota Country magazine, June 2021) Most years, the North Dakota Badlands, as I write this in early May, are changing color. As the ground warms, the winter’s snowmelt brings hints of green into the brown landscape of buffalo and crested wheat grass and little bluestem, and by the end of the month, as you’re reading this, the transition …

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TONY J BENDER: That’s Life — Memorializing The Living And The Dead

Posted on by Tony J Bender

My eyes fluttered awake to the early-morning coos of mourning doves and a halo of light from the window. “Oh, it’s Memorial Day,” I remembered from somewhere in my cavernous REM slumber. I creaked to the cold kitchen in a season in which it’s too warm to run the furnace and too cold for my bones. I was desperate for …

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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — America’s Constitution In 2021: What Would Thomas Jefferson Do?

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson

In an earlier article, Editor-at-Large Clay Jenkinson described America’s Three Constitutions: The Capital C Constitution drafted in 1787, the small c constitution of norms and traditions not specified in the written Constitution and the ways the American people actually constitute themselves. In this second in a series, Jenkinson looks at the Constitution circa 2021. “Some men look at constitutions with …

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PAULA MEHMEL: Shoot The Rapids — The Truth Will Keep Us Free

Posted on by Paula Mehmel

The intransigence of the GOP leaders to move forward with a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection and attack on the U.S. Capitol is the height of party over politics. It is a glaring example of what is broken in our government.The Republicans were given everything they asked for in negotiations, including equal representation and power, and when …

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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — The Revolutionary Lives Of Malcolm X And MLK In The Time of George Floyd

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson

Martin Luther King and Malcolm X rose from markedly different backgrounds to assume leading roles in the civil rights movement, and though each died violently while playing his respective part, neither man fully exited the stage. Both remain to this day celebrated figures in the fight for racial and economic justice. Their much-publicized differences, most notably violence versus nonviolence, have …

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JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Like Rats On A Sinking Ship …

Posted on by Jim Fuglie

Meridian Energy Group, the troubled startup company that has announced plans to build an oil refinery next to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, has closed all of its offices and three of its top executives have left the company, leading energy industry watchdogs to question the future of the company. The company lists three offices on its website, one each in …

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LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Red Oak House Garden Notes No. 65

Posted on by Lillian Crook

I know, I know. It has been many months since I’ve written Red Oak House Garden Notes. How many times can one write about an exceptional drought? How many times can one whine about the long dry winter? I’ve also been busy with rewrites of a manuscript Jim and I have devoted much of the past years crafting. That, and …

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CHEF JEFF: One Byte At A Time — Rhubarb Dream Bars

Posted on by Jeff Tiedeman

Anyone who thinks rhubarb is a garden nuisance has never attended a rhubarb festival, where you can sample many different kinds of desserts, most of them quite tasty, that feature the “pie plant.” I’ve had the chance over the years to take in the annual rhubarb festival sponsored by University Lutheran Church in Grand Forks. In fact, I was asked …

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MICHAEL BOGERT: Photo Gallery — Flora And Fauna

Posted on by Michael Bogert

Grand Forks photographer Michael Bogert has been spending some quality time in the great outdoors lately, capturing images of wildlife and its surroundings.

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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — Grab A Dictionary, Save The Republic

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson

Distressed at the dearth of civic understanding in the United States, Ed Hagenstein worked for over two decades to create “The Language of Liberty: A Citizen’s Vocabulary.” Its purpose is simple: The constitution demands consensus and our form of government requires discourse, which depends in turn on a precise and nuanced vocabulary of its own. Hagenstein has set out to …

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JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Donald Trump And I Got Censored By Facebook

Posted on by Jim Fuglie

Looks like it’s going to be a rainy, windy day. A day to stay inside and write, something I haven’t done for a while. I need to share with you something that happened a little more than a week ago at this same keyboard I am writing at today. I got censored by Facebook. Now I know how Donald Trump …

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ED MAIXNER: Let’s Have A 21st Century U.S. Supreme Court

Posted on by Ed Maixner

Amidst Congress’ partisan hostility, Americans who favor U.S. Supreme Court reforms can’t expect expansion or other structural changes soon. In fact, months before President Joe Biden named his commission in April to broadly evaluate possible judicial system revisions, he declared he wouldn’t “turn the Supreme Court into just a political football” with abrupt changes, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared …

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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — How America’s Three Constitutions Define The Nation

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson

The past few years have raised constitutional questions at an unusually fast clip. After years, even decades, of slumber, the emoluments clause (Article 1, Section 9) suddenly flared up, as well as the pardon clause (Article 2, Section 2), and, of course, the impeachment clause (Article 1, Section 3), among others. From the narrow perspective of civics (not politics), the …

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TONY J BENDER: That’s Life — What If Polio Had Become Politicized?

Posted on by Tony J Bender

Those of us of a certain vintage grew up without fear of polio because Jonas Salk’s vaccine against that awful virus went into distribution in 1955, quickly eradicating the disease in America. But many of us grew up seeing and knowing polio victims, many of them irreparably crippled, some unable to walk, others with atrophied limbs. There was no great …

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JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — The Curious Case Of The Drunk-Driving Legislator

Posted on by Jim Fuglie

I know, I haven’t written much about the North Dakota Legislature this year. Too many other things on my mind. But I followed it, read about it daily and shook my head in amazement over the stupid things the Republican majority did. I won’t tick them off here — you know what I am talking about. But something caught my …

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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — Supreme Court Packing: A Bad Way To Get Even (Or Ahead)

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson

Recent talk among some Democrats about expanding the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices has caused enormous consternation among Republicans but also among many mainstream Democrats and conservative political commentators. The impulse to increase the number of justices is a partisan Democrat response to the refusal by Mitch McConnell and Republican senators to confirm (or even vet) President Obama’s Supreme …

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TONY J BENDER: That’s Life — I’m Doing Great, Thank You

Posted on by Tony J Bender

Hey friends, well, it’s been two months since I announced my cancer diagnosis on the eve of major surgery at Mayo Clinic. Since then, I’ve received a steady stream of cards, well-wishes, and prayers, and they’re working because I’m doing great. Thank you! I don’t plan to spend a lot of time in the future doing play-by-play on my recovery, …

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JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — An Update On The ‘Bridge To Nowhere’

Posted on by Jim Fuglie

Somebody asked in a comment on my blog last week for an update on the proposed Little Missouri Crossing north of Medora, N.D. Here’s some information stolen from an article I wrote for Dakota Country magazine’s May issue, which should be on the newsstands later this week, or in your mailbox if you subscribe, which you should do. Out in …

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JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Snaps® Are Back!

Posted on by Jim Fuglie

A little more than eight years ago, in December 2012, I wrote one of the hardest obituaries I’ve ever had to write, and believe me, I’ve written a lot of them, as a former newspaper reporter and editor. The obituary was for Snaps®. Anyone who knows me well or remembers that blog post on December 8, 2012, knows that I …

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PAULA MEHMEL: Shoot The Rapids — What Really Matters

Posted on by Paula Mehmel

I received a letter from my 22-year-old self this week. Well, sort of. It was a letter that I sent to the woman who was my camp counselor when I was 14, thanking her for the influence she had on my life. I sent it the week before I left for seminary, Aug. 31, 1986. She found it this week, …

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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — Ken Burns, Lynn Novick Create Perfect Hemingway Documentary

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson

Ernest Hemingway is one of our greatest writers, and Ken Burns is our greatest documentary filmmaker, so it is fitting that the latest film by Burns and his creative partner, Lynn Novick, is about the most influential American writer of the 20th century, who committed suicide on July 2, 1961. Hemingway wrote seven novels during his lifetime, six collections of short …

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PAULA MEHMEL: Shoot The Rapids — Wanted, Critical Thinkers

Posted on by Paula Mehmel

I never received the smallpox vaccine. But I thank God for everyone who did. My parents were not anti-vax. But back when everyone my age lined up to get the vaccine that would leave a unique scar on their upper arm, I couldn’t join them. I had severe eczema as a child and due to a reaction that the vaccine …

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TERRY DULLUM: The Dullum File — Da Bears

Posted on by Terry Dullum

With the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020 now well behind us, so to speak, I have another concern. It also involves toilet paper. For months now, I’ve been semi-obsessed with something I’ve been seeing a lot of on television. That is the animated Charmin bears. The colorful toilet paper-pushers come on TV, often late at night for some reason, …

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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — Can The Left Reclaim Populism With Biden As The Modern FDR?

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson

Author Thomas Frank is an unapologetic liberal and populist. Those characteristics shape his writing and worldview. He finds promise in the country’s original populists, who adopted the term in 1891 and who were protesting “unbearable debt, monopoly and corruption … forcing the country to acknowledge that ordinary Americans who were just as worthy as bankers or railroad barons were being …

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JIM THIELMAN: My Big Brother Was A Rental

Posted on by Jim Thielman

Uncle Bert left Washington, D.C., each July, along with everyone else who worked for the federal government. The nation’s capital is built “on a tangle of woods and swamps.” It’s sweltering in the summer. Bert’s family of four drove to his childhood farm in Iowa, then up to my hometown, a small Minnesota river burg where his wife was born. …

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LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Solastalgia: The Drought Of 2021 In North Dakota

Posted on by Lillian Crook

Here in North Dakota in the spring of 2021, the headlines about the pandemic are being pushed aside by the daily news of the extreme drought and prairie fires. All of us search the forecast in hopes of rain, knowing the damage this is causing to the people, the critters and the landscape we love. All of us search for …

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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — North Dakota’s Gold Rush: A Memoir About The Fracking Boom

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson

Michael Patrick F. Smith would not seem to fit the profile of an oil field worker. He’s an actor, a musician and a playwright who sublet his Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment to head out west to Williston, N.D., during the height of the Bakken Oil Boom in 2013. As he admits, “It’s a weird resume for a man applying to work …

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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — The Promises And Pitfalls Of A Modern-Day Boomtown

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson

When the price of a barrel of oil peaked at $145 amid the 2008 economic meltdown, thousands of unsettled men from all over the country descended on the fracking boomtown of Williston, N.D. Centered atop the estimated 7.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil contained within the Bakken Formation, Williston witnessed over the next six years what writer Michael Patrick F. …

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LA VALLEUR COMMUNICATES: Musings By Barbara La Valleur — Harriet Bristol: An Inspiring Life

Posted on by Barbara La Valleur

Harriet Bristol didn’t have any immediate family. She didn’t have a host of friends left. She was a very private person. Come to find out, she had led quite an inspiring life. Somehow, I felt a connection, which is why I was one of four people who stood under a shelter that cold, rainy day to attend her funeral recently …

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JIM THIELMAN: Hottest Twins Home Opener Offered Plenty, Except Beer

Posted on by Jim Thielman

It was a record 90 degrees at Metropolitan Stadium when the Minnesota Twins opened their home baseball season April 22, 1980. The math should have been simple: 36,000 fans + 90 degrees = extra beer vendors. Also in the equation: Every college kid in the Twin Cities would skip class. The drinking age was 19. The Met was a frowzy …

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RUSS HONS: Photo Gallery — University Of North Dakota Vs. University Of Minnesota-Duluth

Posted on by Russell Hons

The University of North Dakota men’s hockey team quest for a ninth national championship was cut short Saturday night in Fargo’s Scheels Arena as the Fighting Hawks were defeated 3-2 by the University of Minnesota-Duluth in a five-overtime game. North Dakota (22-6-1) trailed 2-0 late in the third period before pulling goalie Adam Scheel and tying it up on goals …

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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — From Wounded Knee To Pipeline Access, The Lakota’s Enduring Power

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson

Most histories of the “Indian Wars” in the American West end with the Wounded Knee Massacre on Dec. 29, 1890, when U.S. troops of the Seventh Cavalry killed between 200 and 300 Lakota (Sioux) people, the majority of them women and children, most of whom had been disarmed, at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, just one year into its …

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RUSS HONS: Photo Gallery — University Of North Dakota Vs. American International University

Posted on by Russell Hons

The University of North Dakota men’s hockey team used a four-goal first period outburst in the span of just over seven minutes en route to a 5-1 win over American International University on Friday night in Fargo’s Scheels Arena to advance to the NCAA Midwest Region championship tonight against National Collegiate Hockey Conference rival the University of Minnesota-Duluth. UMD gained the …

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CHEF JEFF: One Byte At A Time — Chicken Vegetable Soup

Posted on by Jeff Tiedeman

Most recipes usually serve four people at the minimum and often are meant for eight. So that means if you are cooking for two, be prepared for a lot of leftovers. That’s the case with preparing an entire chicken. Whether the bird is cut up for frying or left whole for roasting, if you’re only serving two, there is going …

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LA VALLEUR COMMUNICATES: Musings By Barbara La Valleur — Nordic Walking Unmasked

Posted on by Barbara La Valleur

Who knew I’d enjoy exercising so much? That was certainly a new experience. Sure, I enjoy water aerobics, especially since recovering from two knee surgeries in 2018. But walking has never been at the top of my list of exercising practices. Until this past January, when I discovered the joys of Nordic Walking. It was time to take off the …

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JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — A Short, Sweet, Norwegian Celebration

Posted on by Jim Fuglie

Three groups have been cheering the appointment of Debra Haaland as President Biden’s Secretary of Interior. WOMEN. Although 21st century presidents have done better, over the years, probably only about 10 percent of all Cabinet secretaries have been women — I think I read somewhere the total is about 30 since we became a country — so when a woman gets …

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RUSS HONS: Photo Gallery — University Of North Dakota Vs. North Dakota State University

Posted on by Russell Hons

The University of North Dakota’s No. 2 ranking didn’t seem to impress No. 4 North Dakota State University on Saturday in Gate City Bank Field in the FargoDome as the Bison defeated the Fighting Hawks 34-13 in Missouri Valley Football Conference play. The Bison (5-1 overall, 4-1 MVFC) won its 32nd straight home game in handing the Fighting Hawks (4-1 overall, 4-1 …

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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — Nicholas Christakis And Understanding Our Year With COVID-19

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson

Nicholas Christakis’ “Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live“ is an outstanding book. I agree with the eminent historian of ideas Niall Ferguson, who called it “magisterial” in his review in the Times Literary Supplement. I could not recommend it more highly. It’s not only the most readable of the books published on …

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LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Sun Halo And The Vernal Equinox

Posted on by Lillian Crook

Spring weather came to North Dakota early this year, the fifth-driest winter here on record. The sky has been filled with migrating Canada Geese, and some crazy fishermen have already had their boats on the nearby Missouri River, even though there is still ice on the banks. My first birding excursion of the year took place earlier this week with …

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PAULA MEHMEL: Shoot The Rapids — Addressing The Color Divide

Posted on by Paula Mehmel

From time to time, I see Facebook friends who I know to be decent people post things about “cancel culture,” decrying what they see as an “attack” because someone found something offensive. It always makes me sad because I believe that a lot of this “forced” divide in our nation could be addressed if we opened our minds, heard the …

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RON SCHALOW: HB 1298 Technically Not Discriminatory Towards Any Gender

Posted on by Ron Schalow

“Technically.” That’s all the Republicans were shooting for with HB 1298. As in, “No transgender girls are playing high school sports in North Dakota, but technically they can’t if we pass a law.” But there are big loopholes that won’t please the anti-transgender zealots. I especially worry about how Sen. David Clemens, R-West Fargo, is going to take it when …

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CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — Living Through The Pandemic: A Review One Year Later

Posted on by Clay Jenkinson

A year into the modern pandemic era, it seems reasonable to ask, what have we learned? And what should we have learned? I found answers to those questions in a wide-ranging interview with Nicholas Christakis, the author of “Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live.” Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Social and …

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